Reflections on #BlackLivesMatter and other Progressive Rally Cries:
If someone criticizes the Westboro Church and their hateful ways, I don't jump to their defense, and I don't see it as a criticism of my own ministry because I know the difference between good ministers that use their office to help people and bad ministers who abuse their power in ways that hurt the world. In fact, I am one of the voices that criticizes churches like the Westboro Church because their malpractice is a blight on all religion. Their racism/homophobia/BadTheology/etc/etc sullies the robe I wear. I became a minister not because I idolized the ministry but because I wanted to make it better, which takes honest self-reflection and critique. In the same way, I hope any friends I have who serve valiantly as cops or in the military or who have loved ones in the service know that my critiques of the law enforcement system or the military industrial complex are not anti-cop rants, but are in fact rooted in a deep understanding of the value of your sacrifice and your labor. My critiques come from a deep desire to honor the respectable way with which you conduct yourselves. When I criticize what happened in Ferguson or New York, it's not a criticism of you, it's that I can't stand to see your uniform sullied by the missteps of a few or the few shortfalls of the noble system you serve, just as I can't stand the shortfalls of the system I serve. If the Pope can stand in front of the Vatican and openly declare the 15 ills of church leadership, as he did recently, if the Pope can critique the church not because he's anti-church but because he loves the church so much that he wants to uphold it to its highest ideals, then certainly we can do the same with our law enforcement, not because we're anti-cop, but because we love our wider national community so much that we want to uphold our system to its highest ideals. |
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